10 Tips To Create A Successful Blog

Every company want to blog these days as they feel that it’s a good way to increase brand visibility, search engine traffic, and gain more sales; which it can if done it right.

Here are 10 tips you should keep in mind when working with a blog.

Don’t Over Think Everything

A blog should not be so complex that you can’t come up with posts or move forward. Stop, relax, and simplify. Post like you’re talking to your customers and you should be fine.

Know Your Target Audience

Are you posting for new customers, existing customers, industry professionals, or a little bit of everyone?

If posting for new customers, or people who don’t know your industry, be careful not to use acronyms or industry terminology without first explaining them.

If posting for existing customers, then don’t try to sell them your product when they already have it.

Posting to everyone isn’t a bad idea, but your posts should be broken out so that some are for newbies, while others are more technical. Mix it up and don’t try to target two different types of people with one kind of post.

Write Better Content

At last count, by Technorati, there were over 112.8 million blogs out there and if you don’t have any personality or passion, you’ll likely fade into the crowd.

What drives you? What makes you love what you do? What makes your blog stand out?

Make content that matters, not just content for contents sake.

Don’t Be a Perfectionist

Your website will never be perfect and neither will your blog. There are always changes that are going to be made but that shouldn’t stop you from getting your content out there.

Start with a soft launch, were you get your blog up on the web, but don’t promote it yet. That will give search engines a chance to index it and authors some time to get familiar with what they are doing. Then when it’s ready, promote it.

You’ll get more visitors and leads by having it public then it will ever get on the development site, even if it’s live in soft launch mode.

Think About Customers First, Search Engines Second

Some think that a blog is great for SEO, when in reality a blog is great for publishing content. In turn, search engines can easily pick up that new content and can then refer traffic. Plus, if your content is great, it’ll attract links and be promoted on its own.

However, if mediocre content is created just for search engines, you won’t get the results you want.

Create great content for your customers first, and keep SEO second.

Organize Content, But Don’t Over Do It

How easy would it be to read a newspaper if it wasn’t broken out into sections? How easy is it to find content on a blog when it’s not organized?

Categories are an easy way to keep like content together and should be used to do so. However, putting the same post in 20 categories can make it less organized.

Pick 1-5 categories and go from there. There is a fine balance between 0 and to many.

Keep Comments On

Comments are a great way to get feedback and interact with customers. Turning them off is a way of saying, “look at me, listen to me, but don’t talk to me.”

If you really want to connect with people, you have to let them speak and you have to respond to them when they do.

Match the Design To Your Brand

A company blog is an extension of the company brand and it should appear that way. Update the colors, update the design and make it look like a destination.

Simply switching out the logo or just making a few color edits makes it look like no one really cares.

Get a designer and make the blog a destination that compliments the brand.

Post

If all else fails, post. Post industry news, answer customer questions, talk about what you do and why. Even if you don’t know your target audience yet, even if you feel as you don’t know what you’re doing, post.

You’ve got to keep moving forward or you run the risk of killing off the blog.

Relax

Take a deep breath, relax, and remember that blogging isn’t that hard. It’s just writing something for your customers to read.

Every day we write emails, talk to customers on the phone, and interact in our industry; and blogging is no different. It’s just another way of getting information out to help educate and inform others.

So what are you waiting for, start blogging. 🙂

If you have questions, please post them below and maybe I’ll choose one of yours for a future post.

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@LeeOdden is the CEO of TopRank Marketing and editor of Online Marketing Blog. Cited for his expertise by The Economist, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, he's the author of the book Optimize and presents internationally on integrated content, search, social media and influencer marketing. When not at conferences, consulting, or working with his talented team, he's likely on a beach somewhere doing absolutely nothing.